Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Fiction
What it’s about: First one of her neighbors turns up dead, then other bodies follow. Janina, or Duszejko, as she prefers to be called, is of an advanced age and lives in a remote Polish village. She does not eat meat, prefers the company of animals over humans, and quotes William Blake. She is absolutely sure she knows who is behind the deaths and inserts herself into the investigation.
Want a taste? “The best conversations are with yourself. At least there's no risk of a misunderstanding.” “Being healthy is an insecure state and does not bode well. It's better to be ill in a quiet way, then at least we know what we're going to die of.”
Reviewers say: “Tokarczuk's novel succeeds as both a suspenseful murder mystery and a powerful and profound meditation on human existence and how a life fits into the world around it. Novels this thrilling don't come along very often” (Publishers Weekly). “In her depictions of her characters and their worlds both internal and external Tokarczuk has created something entirely new” (Kirkus Reviews).
Author info: in 2018 Tokarczuk won the Man Booker Prize International for her novel Flights and in 2019 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.